The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager

 Let me save you some time, dear reader. If you have picked up this book expecting a psychological thriller, BEWARE that it resolves certain elements of the plot through the supernatural. As I am not a reader of the supernatural, had I not been reading this book for an honest review, I would have slammed it shut at the moment it became surreal.

Casey Fletcher is on the road to destruction as she copes with widowhood by drinking excessively and using high-power binoculars to watch The House Across the Lake, the latest psychological thriller from Riley Sager due out in June. Running away from lots of bad press as her acting career is drowning in alcohol, Casey saves her neighbor from drowning in Lake Greene, where Casey’s family has long owned a lake house in Vermont.

The near death of Katherine Royce, a retired supermodel, bonds the two women. Tom, Katherine’s tech titan husband, is extremely grateful to Casey, and the couple boat across the lake to Casey’s side where they share an expensive bottle of wine. With further spying on the couple, Casey decides the marriage is in trouble, and she believes Katherine has just vanished, although Tom assures Casey that Katherine has simply gone back to their apartment in New York City.

When Casey cannot raise Katherine by text or a phone call – and she clearly sees by using the app Tom invented – that Katherine is located in the house across the lake, she takes matters into her own hands. But this is a Riley Sager novel, so readers expect that nothing is as it seems, and the plot will follow lots of twists and turns before coming to a shock of an ending. However, when the plot makes a wrong turn into the surreal, the book just goes downhill, unless the reader is a fan of the supernatural resolution to a story. And the shocking ending? It is missing.

Sager is a former journalist, editor, and graphic designer who previously published mysteries under his real name, Todd Ritter. A Pennsylvania native, Riley lives in Princeton, New Jersey, where he writes, reads, cooks, and attends movies.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting April 18, 2022.

I would like to thank PENGUIN GROUP Dutton and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.